


One: After The Fall.

by Darjeeling (Johnlockology)



Series: A Study In Grief [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Death of Sherlock Holmes, Grief, John Watson POV, John Watson's Blog, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, POV First Person, Post Reichenbach, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johnlockology/pseuds/Darjeeling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A heartbroken John Watson returns home alone to 221B Baker Street after the supposed death of his best friend and lover, Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One: After The Fall.

 

_In which a life ends and hearts are broken._

From the Blog of Dr. John H. Watson  
Private Entry  
15th January 20—.

I’ve still got his blood on my hands. My fingernails look as if I’ve been gardening in somebody’s sternum. Pulling up great, pulsating capillary taproots. Mining for marrow, tearing out handfuls of iron oxide ore. Bits of brain matter stipple my shirt-cuffs. Complex coagulating continents dapple the front of my jumper.

I only touched him for a moment before they pulled me away. How did so much of the inside of Sherlock Holmes end up spattered over my body? His blood stiffens over me, oxidizing. I can smell the chemical change. I can smell his death. I want to bite my tongue and suck my fingers clean. I want to share blood with him again. One last time.

I should’ve been there. With him, on the rooftop. I should’ve stopped him. And if I couldn’t, I should have fallen with him.

Not fallen. He didn’t  _fall._

He jumped, coat billowing out like wings made wrong.

And that’s what I’d have done, too. I’d have jumped with him if I couldn’t make him stop. And I never could make him do anything but pause. A heartbeat, a heartbeat-and-a-half. _A bit not good, John?_  And then on he would go. On he went.

I held an unbelievably warm pink palmful of his brains in my hand for as long as I could. But even in its physical form a mind is ephemeral. Before I could stop myself letting go, it slipped away. And now these rough patches drying like liquid rubies down my front and on my mouth and in my hair are all that’s left of the greatest mind the world has ever known.

I’ll wash myself soon. Send everything I’ve ever loved swirling down the drain in one final redundant feat of physics.

_Oh. God._    
 _I can’t._    
 _Sherlock, I can’t do this._

 

I slam the laptop shut, smearing blood over the case. I can’t breathe. I can’t take in air. I don’t think I want to, not ever again. I just want to sit here. I just want to sit in the filth that’s left of him and fail to breathe.

But that’s not possible. I’m a doctor: I know these things. The why and how of them. All the reasons our most heartbroken, dramatic statements are nothing more than hyperbole.

Of course, I will keep on breathing. It’s what people do.

The human imperative of survival makes it a foregone conclusion, for most of us. Most of us can’t just stop, even when we want to. It takes an extraordinary will to muck up the works of air in, air out. I’m not that extraordinary. Never have been. I’ve always just gone on breathing. Surviving. Muddling along.

Until I met Sherlock and suddenly life was full of an intense and piercing light, a light that revealed every mystery.

A light that’s now gone out.

I’m in the fucking dark again. And my leg aches in that old exasperating way. The way that tells me I’ve begun to imagine the circumstances of my life again, instead of living in it.

It’s happening already. It’s happening this fucking soon. I’m reverting to form. Can it really be that this extraordinary—this maddening—this terrifying, inexorable and beautiful man—has left no trace on me that can’t be scrubbed away?

His letter says to delete him.  
Maybe he knew me better than I think.

Because although I remember every detail of the man who was Sherlock Holmes, I’m starting to forget how I was changed because of him. Changed into something better than I was. Now all I can remember are the ways in which I've been dismembered. In one endless moment. The time it took for both of his feet to leave the parapet and keep an appointment the rest of his body had made with a patch of Smithfield cobblestone.

In that one moment I became less than I have ever been.

_Sherlock. Fucking. Goddamn it. Goddamn you, Sherlock Holmes. You should never have looked at me twice. You should never have deduced me. I’d have been better off. Or if not, I wouldn’t have known any better. I’d have remained one of the ordinary people you so coolly dismissed._

_Boring._    
 _Safe._    
 _More or less intact._

My mind goes grey, like static on the telly back in the day, when the BBC used to go off air late at night like a miser’s snuffed out candle. I don’t know how long I’ve been sat here, still as a waxwork, before a frenetic staccato of tapping fingers at the door grates across the beautiful blank slate I’ve made of my mind.

“John—John! Dear?” Mrs. Hudson’s warbling voice is full of mucus. She’s been crying, hard.

_Oh, God. Who told her? I let someone else tell her. Fuck. Shit._  
I can’t move. I can’t even begin to speak.

“John, dear, Detective Inspector Lestrade’s just told me everything. It’s too horrible—I can’t even. John? Can you let me in, love? I’ve got my key, only Sherlock doesn’t like me letting myself in unless it’s to bring in the shopping—Oh, God.  _Sherlock_.”

She breaks down, saying his name. I can hear her sliding down the wall. Can picture the disarray of her house-dress and cardigan. The skitter and clunk of her sensible shoes on the badly-swept carpet. She weeps hard, a sound like a strangled soprano, and though I can’t see it, I know her carefully applied mascara must be stinging her eyes.

She’s so well arranged, Mrs. Hudson. A lovely old dame. They don’t make that kind of widow anymore.

I can’t bear to look at her come undone.

I can’t bear to move from this spot. I just sit with my eyes shut so hard I’m seeing a supernova on the insides of my eyelids. I grit my teeth. If I don’t grit my teeth as hard as I can, the remains of my heart will climb up my throat and into my mouth and then it will jump into my lap. I can taste it. I can taste it and it’s bitter and it tastes so fucking good I just want to chew it up and regurgitate it and swallow it over and over again.

_There was a poem like that, wasn’t there._    
 _There was a poem like that, right Sherlock?_    
 _I know, I know._    
 _Dull._    
 _Old poems about cannibalized hearts in the desert are deadly dull._

_But what else have I got to do with myself now besides sit here and eat my own heart til it’s gone like you are and to never ever move ever again? You can see my conundrum. Be deadly dull forever or move even one bare inch._    
 _Yeah. Not gonna happen. Not soon. If I’m lucky, not ever._

But then I hear a whimper. A soft padding of four feet on Turkish carpet. Crime Scene. Our English Bulldog puppy. I threatened to call her Gladstone, but Sherlock wouldn’t have it. We only just got her. Sherlock only held her the one time, tucked up in the lapels of his greatcoat for the cab-ride home. She only managed to give his face the one tongue-assault, which he bore with a tolerant stoicism I’ve rarely seen on him.

Crime Scene was the last living thing his lips touched. He didn’t kiss me goodbye today. That would’ve been a mistake. A kiss would’ve given everything away. I’d have tasted everything. The lies. The intent. The imminence of his death. Besides which, Sherlock never kissed me goodbye, or hello. He thought the former morbid and the latter maudlin. Two very bad things in his mind. That’s elementary, kids. Sherlockology 101.

With the sort of effort best reserved for being raised from the dead, I wrench my eyes open, one eyelid at a time. Crime Scene’s standing uncertainly on the carpet, wagging her ridiculous little tail with the sort of concerned expression I’ve only ever seen on one face.  _My_  face, actually. Sherlock said she took after me. Her furrowed little brow and droopy eyes. _Terminally worried,_  he said, with a fond smirk. _Just like you, John. We’d better put her on a course of anti-anxiety tablets straight away, or you’ll both be keeping me up nights._

_Right, mate. Like you ever slept through til morning a single night of your life. At least now that you’re a member of the London Underground, you can catch up on your bloody sleep. It’s my turn now, I suspect, to pace the floor, wear the rug ragged in your wake._

Crime Scene woofs politely in my direction. My hands dangle useless between my knees, but I manage to waggle one gore-stiffened digit in her direction. She bounds over, and pushes her squashed little face into my palm. She begins to nuzzle and lick, and though I feel like I ought to, I don’t stop her.

Sherlock was right. As usual.  
She really is like me.  
She’s got a taste for Sherlock Holmes.  
One tiny  _amuse bouche_ , and she’ll be an addict for life.

I pet her for a few minutes. I stroke her all over, making funny little sounds in my throat that she seems to understand. Her fur is like velvet. She’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. My love for her is simple and infinite.

Now I know. Now I understand.

_You agreed to her because you wanted to give me a reason to move again, after. You gave her to me so I’d have someone else to live for. You knew I’d never let her down, the way I let you down. You named her Crime Scene to remind me what you lived for. Two small syllables was all it took to make her both my reason and yours. For breathing. For making do and moving on. You’re a cruel and clever bastard, Sherlock Holmes. Bribing me with puppies when all I want to do is die here, for a while. Perhaps even forever if I take to it._

_And how about you? Are you taking to it, my love? Knowing you, you’ve probably already got a case. The death of JFK, perhaps. The mystery of Anastasia Romanov. Rasputin would make a hell of a sidekick. He’s probably bored as fuck, poncing about in Elysian Fields Forever. I’m sure you can relate. Unless another clever little bastard was right, and dying really is an awfully big fucking adventure._

_If it is._    
 _If it is, you insufferable._    
 _You fucking. You sodding great--_    
 _If it is, why did you leave me here? I thought we were partners, you bastard. You horrible. You fucking blessed--_

_Why did you leave me behind?_

Painfully, inch by inch, Crime Scene jumping at my knees, nipping at my heels and fingers—I get up. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much. I must’ve been sat there for hours. The dark is rising and the moon hangs low, peering into the large front window of 221B Baker Street. My home, whatever Sherlock’s letter says about not staying here anymore, now.

_Bollocks to that, mate. You know where you can stick it. Sideways, too._

I limp over to the door. My leg is on fire. That old phantom wound opening its invisible maw again.  _Just. Shut it. Shut the fuck up._  I get to the door without falling over the furniture and wrench it open. Crime Scene races out onto the landing, woofing a little and jumping over a slumped, defeated-looking figure.

Mrs. Hudson’s still there in the hall, back against the wallpaper, head cradled in her arms. Her hands shake as she gathers Crime Scene towards her. She’s laughing even as the puppy licks black-tinged tear-streaks from her wan face. “Who are you, then?” she warbles weakly, rubbing the velveteen ears. “Who are you? No dogs in the lease, I'm afraid, little thing, but I’m sure we’ll manage to find a loophole.”

She puts Crime Scene down and lurches to her feet, waving me off when I move to help her. A good thing, too, because I’m only standing with the help of the door frame. My knees’ve signed a Round Robin and are threatening a mutiny.  _Did you like that one, Sherlock? It’s piratey. You love pirates, according to Mycroft._

I laugh shrilly, and push the hysteria back into my mouth with my fist. Now isn’t the time. Giggling at a crime scene is one thing. Giggling over what is essentially a grave site another entirely. I bite my knuckles, hard. I taste blood. Some of it’s actually mine.

Mrs. Hudson pushes her way into my arms. I let them fold round her, surrendering to all her mumsy comforts. “Mind your dress,” I tell her. “I’m covered in—I’m…I’m not clean, Mrs. Hudson.”

“Do you really think I give a damn about that, John?” She shakes me. She’s surprisingly strong. Tiny people often are, and after all, I should know. I find myself leaning on her even as I hold her up. “But…take a bath, dear. You really must. This can’t go on. You’ll be needing all your strength. Being clean will make you feel ever so much better. I’ll bring up a nice cuppa just before you’re ready for bed.”

“I don’t want to feel better, Mrs. Hudson,” I say, screwing my face up as if by petulance alone I can make all unsolicited promises of tea and sympathy evaporate. “I want to feel like this. I  _need_  to feel like this. At least, for a while.”

“I know, dear, but do it in fresh clothes. Give me these ones. I’ll have them cleaned.”

I nod as if agreeing, even though I know I won’t. This is the last trace of him, smeared over my clothing. I may have to come clean. I may have to scrub him from my hair and fingers. But I won’t scrub him from everything. Not by a long chalk.

_I don’t know what will become of me, Sherlock. But one way or another, I’m taking what’s left of you with me._

Mrs. Hudson ambles her way back downstairs, stopping every few steps to peer sorrowfully back up at me through the gloom. When I’m sure she’s shut the door firmly behind her and locked the latch, I go into the bathroom.

Crime Scene follows me in, curling up on the bathmat for a late-night snooze.

I stand at the sink with my head bowed, bracing my hands on either side of the porcelain basin. I don’t look up for a long time. I study the whorls of ruined plasma that decorate my skin like a delicate but sinister finger-painting. The type I’ve no doubt Jim Moriarty executed as a child. My mind rears back from that image.  _Not now. I won’t think about_ him _now. Time enough for that. Time enough for everything, now—except the one thing I want. More time. Just. More. With you, Sherlock._

The hairs on my arms and knuckles are stiff and matted. My fingernails are microcosmic crime scenes each on their own. A kaleidoscope of minute evidences to be collected and bagged in the forensics lab in the backroom of my mind.

The question remains, whose crime was it, this fall, this leap, this swan-dive into ignominy?

Sherlock swore it was his.

But since it was his first falsehood to me, the only one that actually counted—more than an impatient fib to get what he wanted. More than misdirection to get me to do the last thing _I_  wanted—I recognize it for what it is by its glaring irregularity. A patently impossible lie. An invention. And not of Sherlock’s. It’s not elegant enough. Clever, devious. Audacious, certainly. But it lacks his sophistication. It reeks of petulance, the sort of which Sherlock is only capable when dealing with Mycroft on a Bored Day.

_In short, my love—I don’t fucking believe you._    
 _You forgot one thing when trying to trick me into believing that everything about you was a sham, Sherlock._    
 _You forgot that I knew you. That I know you._    
 _Every part of you—even the bits I don’t understand. I can taste the lie the way you could taste colours and smell numbers. The bitter tang of mendacity haunts the undercarriage of my tongue, a clever stowaway that will lead me to the truth about you._    
 _No one will ever convince me that you told a lie, least of all you, you glorious madman. You complete and utter idiot. You tosser. You saint._    
 _I’ve had every part of you. You gave me everything you are._    
 _You can’t hide from me now._    
 _Not even in death._

Finally, I look up into the mirror. I look like I’m the one who’s been murdered.  
Well. Haven’t I?  
I have.  
In every way that counts.

My eyes are bloodshot, carrying a full arsenal of luggage underneath. My nose drips. My mouth a silent wound. I rub the gore from the creases of my forehead with the back of my hand, but I just add to the patina. I look dangerous. As dangerous as I am and will be.

_This is my warpaint, Sherlock._    
 _I may wash it off. I may send it on a one-way trip down into the sewers of the city you loved as much as you loved anything on earth—but it will always be with me._    
 _I’m permanently tattooed with the tell-tale strands of your astonishing DNA._    
 _We’re one, now. We’re fused, a mutation. A terrifying covalent bond._    
 _We’ll never have a child together, but we will for goddamn sure have this._    
 _Where I go, you go._

_And you are fucking going to help me understand this thing. Do you hear me, Sherlock Holmes? Dead you may be, but you_ will _hear me._

I turn on the faucet, letting it run hot enough to scald.

I strip off my clothes, one article at a time. Jumper, undershirt, shirt, jeans, Y-fronts, socks. I pile them in a corner. I’ll deal with them later. After I do what needs done. I’ll either burn or bury them, as I will either burn or bury him.

I pick up the soap, the red carbolic we keep to sterilize our hands after cleaning up one of Sherlock’s experiments. I rub it all over. Hands, arms, face and neck, burnishing my skin. The lather stings like hell, but I don’t care. I even wash my eyes out with it, and it feels so fucking good. I cry vermilion as I scratch the hell out of my scalp.

I let it all rinse away, putting my head under the tap, throwing water over my throat and shoulders.

Everything I’ve got left on my skin that was his, everything that lived and hummed inside of his unfathomable head only a few hours ago streams down my chest and into my navel. Blood and soap patter over the tiles. I squidge the ungodly emulsion between my toes. I hold on for a few moments more.

When I finally step into the bath and let the water close over me like a sutured wound, I’m already clean. I’m already baptized.

First in blood, and then in acid.

 

* * *

 

[Artifact 1.1: The letter sealed up in a deep purple envelope Sherlock Holmes leaves propped up against the mantelpiece in 221B, prior to his rooftop rendezvous with Jim Moriarty. It’s the first thing John sees on entering the flat after the Reichenbach Fall. He holds it in his blood-stained hand for a very long time before opening it. After reading it a half-dozen times, he takes it with him to the bedroom and puts it under the pillow. He knows a talisman when he sees one, whether Sherlock intended it as one or not.]

  
_Dr. Watson,_

_I left Crime Scene with Mrs. Hudson before I went out. I fed her, first._

_If you’re reading this, it means that the only way I could stop Moriarty was with my death. And now, in this note, I have confessions to make._

_I would have liked to keep on lying to you, but it was you, John, who got too clever for me. You deduced me._

_It’s all true what Moriarty said at that reporter’s flat. Richard Brook, all of it. I phoned him up, I hired him to keep me company, because it got so lonely being me, so clever and insane and utterly alone. All of it was by my design. I told him what to do, and say, and how to abduct you. How else could he know so much, John?_

_I researched you; I catalogued your brain. I wanted to impress you and drag you into 221B and keep you there forever, forever. But I got found out._

_I’m a fraud. I’m… I’m a fake. I’m utterly no good, but I’m not sorry about any of it, only about being found out, because if I weren’t found out I could have had you forever._

_I’m no genius. And by the time you read this, I will be nothing at all._

_Forget about me expeditiously, John. Don’t do any waiting. Don’t linger about. Erase me from your hard drive and move on. People do. You can._

_You’ve met a woman named Mary. I think you should ring her up, tonight. Tell her about the mad, cruel man who tricked you to the brink of desecration, and tell her over a bottle of wine._

_Goodbye. Goodbye, and understand that there is no point in staying here another night._

  
_Sherlock Holmes._

 

**Author's Note:**

> The letter to John Watson from Sherlock Holmes was authored by Formaldehyde, co-partner in crime of Johnlockology. Formaldehyde pens all sections contained in A Study In Grief written from Sherlock Holmes' POV, while Darjeeling supplies those written from the POV of John Watson, tag-team style!


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